Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Rebecca Bollinger’s Book of Stains*


A project and a catalog of ideas all at once, the book of stains is an album of images of objects blemished with unwanted color, stains. 

The antithesis of purity, these stains represent the failings of the ideals of the clean and pristine.   Gentler than a scar or amputation these stains are no less disfiguring and permanent.  Or is it refiguring and an assertion of impermenance?  

Does intention make the violation of the stain different than the violence of creation? 

The violet ink soaks the white linen fabric in an expression of a failure to hold, the breaking of a seal, the compact between pen and ink undone. 

The fabric forever altered/changed to something other than its prior pure white. 

The change is unexpected, unintended and unwelcome.  The stain ruins the shirt and in its runination the shirt becomes other.

The artist wears her paint spattered clothes as a badge of honor.   Fabric bearing the stains of her craft as a soldier’s uniform bears the medals of his.

The shirt pinned to a board or crumpled in a vitrine is remade again in a reframing/naming of the object.

“White with Purple Pierce”

History re-written to reclaim the shirt and the stain as an expression and act of making meaning.    The stain no longer a violation but a violet medal of meaning informs the white purity of the possibilities of purple.

The stain ascends to art.  Becomes an accidental artifact.  A marker of meaning.

Stains are evidentiary.   Blood stains especially so.

We prefer to curate our evidence to frame the narrative to our advantage.   Unfiltered evidence clouds the story.   Creates confusion and conflict.   The unintended and unexpected stain is unwelcome.   The intended stain is a lie.    Are these statement both true and the inverse too?


 *Rebecca Bollinger’s Book of Stains refers to the artists notebooks of images relating to stains which she generously shared during one of Dodie Bellamy's writing workshops.   This is an initial meditation on the concepts of stains as expressed in this book(books actually).   Stains will be part of an ongoing project in parallel to my consideration of the Colonial.

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